


won't you tear me open wide?

by alamorn



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, hey guess who's still bitter that Kisa's tag is Santanico
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-08 19:34:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12260742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: Paloma, Kisa, and eight hundred miles to something like forgiveness.





	won't you tear me open wide?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scorpiod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiod/gifts).



The stake was firm in her hand, and it would be easy, so easy, to sink it home in Paloma’s chest, to turn one more mistake into ash under her feet. “I’m sorry,” she said, but instead of staking her, like she’d meant to, she found her mouth slotted over Paloma’s.

There was a moment of shock, where neither of them moved, and then there was a bright burst of pain as Paloma sank her fangs into her lip. The venom made her light headed for a moment, just a moment, but she released Paloma all the same.

“That’s not the girl I know,” she heard Malvado say. “You went soft on me.”

“You wanted her to kill me?” Paloma asked, voice wavering between fury and betrayal.

“Of course I wanted her to kill you,” Malvado said, and Kisa sighed.

“Run,” she suggested, and did not wait to see if Paloma would listen before she turned to face Malvado.

 

After…everything, her skin itched with the need to be _away_ , so she found a motorcycle and made her goodbyes and fled. Her lip still throbbed with phantom pain where Paloma had bitten her.

She hoped Paloma had made it out alive, but she doubted it. 

The road unspooled before her, and there was no one beside her to demand she go one way or another. Freedom. It was bittersweet. With each mile, she hoped to feel some peace, some release of the tension she’d carried for so long. Instead, all she got was pain, spreading from her lip through her jaw. She could almost feel her veins carrying Paloma’s venom to her heart.

A figure rose out of the road before her, standing firm in the path of her hurtling motorcycle, edges uncertain in the wavery pre-dawn light, and Kisa's edge of worry about the sun. She skidded to a stop and flipped up the face-guard to snarl an insult, but suddenly it was Paloma, only an inch away, her hair thick and fragrant where it brushed Kisa's jacket, her nose nearly brushing Kisa's.

"Liar," Paloma said. "You touched me. He touched me. It is time for me to touch you, bitch goddess, snake queen, worm queen." Her hands locked around Kisa's throat and she lashed out, hand landing flat on Paloma’s chest and sending her flying. The sun peeked over the edge of the world, and her wrist started to smoke, where it peeked from beneath her sleeve and was not covered by her glove. Paloma was nowhere to be seen.

Unsettled, she flipped her face-guard down. Her hands weren't shaking, and her breath came as easy as ever, but the skin of her throat felt tight and burnt. So this was how it felt, to feel your mind not your own. She'd never been on this side of it.

She drove on. There was nothing else to do. She drove until she found a cute little place, a bed and breakfast, whatever that was, with dogs running around, and no neighbors for miles. They took her money and sent her to bed with the WiFI password, and a warning that the mouser would try to slip in and sleep with her.

It was...out of her realm of experience. So she went, uneasy, and found the room was light and airy, with big windows. She drew the shades, and went to the bathroom to wash off the road dust. She half expected to see Paloma in the mirror -- she'd done the same to Richie. It was an easy trick, as far as such things went.

She saw nothing, and nothing when she left the bathroom. Instead, she slept the day away, uneasy, uncertain. She paid cash when she left, enough that the couple didn’t ask any questions.

 

She meandered her way west, thinking idly of the highway Richie had talked about -- Route 66? -- and driving all night and as much of the day as she could stand. She wanted to see the coast, she decided. Wanted to swim in the moonlight. 

Slowly, flat, arid desert turned to rolling grasslands, golden and dry. She could taste the ocean in the air before she could see it, salty and fresh when she breathed. The beach wasn’t quite empty when she got there, after the moon had risen. There was a group of boys a few hundred feet away, clustered around a small fire. Noise rose from their group with the light. Shouting and laughter. She turned away from them and walked down the beach until she could just see the light of the fire, and hear the edges of their noise. The ocean was louder, a steady beat of waves on sand.

She pulled off her boots and socks, her jacket, her pants, her shirt, left them in a pile, and walked into the sea, wriggling her toes into the sand with each step.

It was shockingly cold, when it first washed over her feet. She bit back a gasp and kept going. By the time it hit her knees, she’d adjusted, or gone numb. Then a swell washed over her shoulders, splattering the underside of her chin, so cold she felt like she’d been punched, gasping for breath, and Paloma bobbed before her, just her eyes above the water. Like a crocodile, waiting for unwary prey.

She licked her lips and tasted salt. “Paloma.”

Paloma rose from the water, the moon turning her silvery and hard edged. “ _Diosa_. Did you miss me?”

Kisa didn’t reach out, just let the motion of the waves fill her, until she was nothing but longing and fear and guilt, swelling up and receding down, easy and unassuming. It did not demand action.

That was left to Paloma, who fitted her body along Kisa’s, one leg sliding between hers, breasts pushing against her chest. “ _Diosa_ ,” she crooned again, fisting her hands in Kisa’s wet hair, “did you dream of me?”

“Yes,” Kisa confessed. “ _Yes_.”

“Good,” Paloma whispered. “I hope it hurt.” Her hands slid from Kisa’s hair to her neck, and then there was an inexorable pressure down, down, _down_ , until the water closed over her head and she was staring up through night made solid at Paloma’s face, her set jaw, the triumph in her eyes.

Breathing was a memory long past, so she waited a moment to allow Paloma the satisfaction, and then seized her by the waist and yanked her under too, rolling over her so that when they sank through the water, it was Paloma’s back that hit sand.

Paloma screamed, an explosion of bubbles that hid the moment she transformed, and the beginnings of her lunge. Kisa caught her by the throat and squeezed until the fantasy faded in a rush of bubbles. 

When she worked her way back to shore, she couldn’t find her pile of clothes, and the beach had lost all attraction. She worked her way back to her motorcycle and got on, still dripping in only her underwear, and set off to find a place to spend the night.

 

She chose a dive. The woman at the front desk raised an eyebrow, but her card was good, and soon she had a keycard in hand. The motel room exuded cheapness, all the furniture scarred and battered, the fabrics stiff and scratchy. At least the hot water worked, and she washed the sea from her skin, scrubbing perhaps a little too hard.

Paloma was waiting on the bed when Kisa came out, dripping and naked. Paloma was naked too, arranged coquettishly on the bed, one leg bent to her chest. She'd made Richie see the bank teller in a similar position, she recalled distantly. There was much she had earned punishment for, and here it was.

Paloma smiled, like she never had in life. "Don't you want to fuck me?"

"No," Kisa said. "Go away."

"No," Paloma returned, relaxing back and taking up much of the bed. "Sleep with me."

"You will not be the first ghost I've slept with," Kisa said, tired, exhausted, less in need of sleep than forgiveness. She would find neither here.

"Maybe the prettiest, though," Paloma said, and rolled to her side, patted the bed next to her.

Kisa sighed. She could spend the day awake, or she could do as Paloma wanted. Maybe a week ago she would have stayed up to spite her, but a week ago Paloma had been human. And Malvado had lived. Cruel as it was, she would have made the trade a hundred times over. She slid into the bed and turned her back to Paloma.

That didn't deter her. She slid up against Kisa's back, warm and solid, arm a heavy bar over her waist. She nuzzled the back of Kisa's neck, working her way to nip at her ear. "I'll be with you till you die, worm queen."

Kisa closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. Paloma wasn’t content to let her, and the hand that hung over her hips took only a moment to slide lower and cup Kisa’s mound.

Kisa threw her across the room. “ _No_ ,” she said. “I will not be touched again. Not even by you.”

Paloma picked herself to her feet and dropped her fangs, scales crawling over her face. She was even more beautiful like that, wild and confident in her own power. Was she dead? Was this some figment she’d sent to torment Kisa? Was this her ghost? Or did she still live and hate?

“Paloma,” she said. “I’m sorry. You don’t want to live this way.”

“It’s your fault,” Paloma said, and sauntered back over to her, touching her jaw. Kisa hissed warningly, her own fangs dropping without a thought.

“Look at you,” Paloma said. “So beautiful. I hate you, and I still can’t look away.”

Kisa closed her eyes. “Do you need me to beg?”

“Yes.”

She’d had to beg before, had gotten on her knees for men far less deserving. Deliberately she dropped down. It put her eyes just under Paloma’s navel. Just as deliberately, she dragged her gaze up Paloma’s body, from her feet to her face. Paloma took a steadying breath as her scales faded and her fangs tucked away and slid both hands onto Kisa’s cheeks, pushing her head back far enough that her neck ached. Kisa swallowed, putting her own fangs away.

“Forgive me,” Kisa said. “Please.”

Paloma’s face twisted. “You call that begging?”

“Am I begging a ghost?”

Paloma grinned, a toothy, satisfied look. “Did you like it? I can feel you now, you know. My venom in you. Your mind. Can you feel it?”

Kisa relaxed into her hold as much as she could. “You will be very powerful. I could teach you.”

“Like you taught me to dance?” Paloma laughed, then thought. “It _is_ the least you could do.”

“Let me make it up to you,” Kisa said, her voice easily sliding into the seductive tone that always convinced men. “I have done you so much damage. Let me help you heal.”

Paloma’s eyes darkened and her gaze darted to the bed. Suddenly, Kisa could smell her cunt. That, more than anything, convinced her that the Paloma before her was living and present, not a ghost, or a figment sent to torment her.

“I’m glad you made it out,” she said, and that honesty was too much for Paloma, whose face twisted once more. She slid her hands up into Kisa’s hair and fisted them, forcing her head back even farther.

“You were right about one thing,” Paloma said, contemplative. “No one ever fucked me.” She looked Kisa in the eye, and the desire in them was almost overwhelming. “I think you should.”

Kisa considered. And then she decided. “Get on the bed.”

“No,” Paloma said. “Here.” She spread her legs a little, and pulled Kisa’s head forward into her curls.

Kisa licked in. She was damp, not quite wet, but her flavor burst across Kisa’s tongue all the same. It was not as good as blood, but nothing was. She raised one hand to brace across Paloma’s stomach and pull her lips apart, reveal the hard little nub that made her thighs jump. Once she’d circled Paloma’s clit a few times, laved a few wide tongued strokes over the whole of her pussy, Paloma was more than damp.

She raised her other hand, and gripped Paloma’s hip, tight enough that Paloma hissed. She worked there until her jaw was aching and Paloma’s hands twisted hard enough in her hair to hurt. Then she released her hip and slid a finger into her and stroked as she sucked at her clit. Paloma made a small, injured noise, and clenched hard, over and over again, until she was wrung out and panting.

Satisfied, Kisa rose and sat on the bed. When Paloma came to her and tried to shove her to her back, Kisa clamped a hand around her wrist and flipped her, so that she straddled Paloma’s waist, and pinned one hand over her head. Her other hand circled Paloma’s throat, not putting any pressure on it, not yet.

“This is the only apology I will give you,” Kisa said as Paloma stared mutinously up at her. “I would do it again in a _heartbeat_.”

“You don’t have a heart.”

Kisa laughed and let herself smile. She knew what it looked like with lipstick — deep red and rueful, perfectly put together. She wasn’t sure what it looked like now, with her face bare except for Paloma’s slick on her lips and chin. “No,” she agreed. “I don’t.”

“Was that the apology?” Paloma asked. “Fucking me?”

Kisa could hear her voice going hard. She was done talking about this. “Would you rather I killed you?”

Paloma blinked, swallowed against her hand. “You said you would teach me.”

“Yes,” Kisa said, "and I will."

Paloma swallowed again. Kisa tightened her grip a little, just to feel the way her throat pushed against her palm. "I don't forgive you. Not yet."

Kisa released her, rolling her shoulders back. "I wouldn't expect you to. Not yet."

Paloma wasn't a ghost. Kisa slept with her all the same.


End file.
